Acutance

Under acutance is understood in photography the contour sharpness. An image is usually perceived as the sharper, the more pronounced the color or brightness transitions are shown. In particular, in the black and white photography is a high acutance is sought.

With digital photography, pictures are often already sharpened during memorization by the electronics, which does not always lead to positive results. With over sharp pixel images occur especially in lossy formats (eg JPG) and the artifacts - in general: the picture noise - overly produced.